Lively fought back, explaining that she's at the event to talk about her work with the Child Rescue Coalition, not answer questions she sees as anti-women. "I'm here so we...become more aware, and that we change, and that we build (women up)," she said. "So, you can ask me another question."

Though Lively is a frequent front-row guest of fashion shows like Michael Kors, she clearly wanted the day to focus on not what she was wearing, but on the important cause that brought her to the event, where she delivered a gravely serious speech about child pornography.

"The kids are getting younger and the content is getting more devastating," she said, speaking in front of a screen pinpointing the locations of IP addresses currently viewing child pornography. "When a law enforcement officer told me this, I asked, how young are the victims? And he told me infants — and I have a six-month-old daughter."

Watch a clip from Lively's speech (warning: the content may be disturbing to some viewers).

Fashion is a prickly topic on red carpet these days -- Lively isn't the first actress to petition for questions on a wider range of topics. In 2015, ahead of the Oscars that year, Reese Witherspoon used the hashtag #AskHerMore to implore journalists to get more creative with questions on carpets other than, "What are you wearing?"

"This movement #AskHerMore..have you heard of it?" she wrote on Instagram. "It's meant to inspire reporters to ask creative questions on the red carpet."

But there's often more at play than straight-up sexism when reporters ask about fashion, with most celebrities wearing — and therefore marketing — free designer clothing on red carpets. (Lively has a longstanding endorsement deal with L'Oreal, which brought her to the Cannes Film Festival last year in an array of gorgeous gowns.)